


And Put Away Childish Things

by voodoochild



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Awesome Ladies Ficathon, Future Fic, Gen, Reconciliation, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:46:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alice Carter, Jack Harkness, and forgiveness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Put Away Childish Things

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: "And maybe anger is your only choice, but maybe heart and fist and human voice might be the better way". Spoilers for Children of Earth, naturally.

After what he does, Alice doesn't think she'll ever forgive her father.

She thinks, seriously and comprehensively, about shooting him in the head with the gun Johnson gave her. She can see it now - his wide eyes, neat little bullet hole appearing between them (because Alice is an excellent shot, neither her mother nor her father would have accepted anything less), his final breath while she stood over him, triumphant.

But she keeps the gun at her side, and walks away instead. She denies him the satisfaction of any reaction at all. And then he's gone, and Alice couldn't care less, because she's burying her son. She watches as her little boy is lowered in the ground and turns away when she sees Gwen Cooper and her husband at the funeral. Lets the normalcy of the women on her street who have turned out in support wash over her - eats casseroles and freshly-baked bread and pies because she can hear her mother's voice telling her that starving never did anyone any good.

She gets a job in an office - simple and boring and as far away from Torchwood as she can get. Alice is the model employee, married to the company and never asks for time off. What would she use it for?

Johnson and Gwen Cooper have rebuilt Torchwood. They call and email Alice, hesitatingly asking for a consult on this case or that case. She's not the child of two Torchwood operatives for nothing, and they get their answers, but each time, Alice changes her phone number and moves to a different flat in the London metro area (not Cardiff, not without Stephen).

Years go by. She doesn't hear from her father and she's relieved, still thinks she might shoot him on sight.

And then one day she sees him. Not him-him, not the Jack Harkness who killed his own grandson. This one is so, so young, laughing and flirting with a teenaged blonde girl and a bloke just a bit younger than Alice is. And she realizes - this is the Doctor. This is Rose. This is her father before he was immortal.

She could kill him, easy as breathing. And he'd stay dead.

Of course, it would completely bollocks-up the timeline and possibly cause her to never be born. There might have been a time Alice would have been okay with that, but now, she stops. Stays her hand. Lets her father, the Doctor, and Rose walk off arm-in-arm, still smiling without a care in the world.

It's a long time before she sees him again. Thirty years, in fact, and she's lying in a hospital bed, dying from cancer. Opens her eyes after a particularly vicious round of chemo, and he's standing in the doorway. He explains to her doctor that he's family, lets the woman believe he's her grandson.

The irony doesn't escape Alice, but she nods when he motions to the seat beside her bed and he sits down, reaching out for her hand.

"Dad," she says, finally, struggling to sit up and grasp his hand. "Dad, I - I missed you."

"Missed you too, Allie," he says.

Forgiving him is the last thing she ever does.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The past in the future (And Put Away Childish Things remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1595603) by [pamymex3girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pamymex3girl/pseuds/pamymex3girl)




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